Zhongli Quan, Wade-Giles romanization Chung-li Ch’üan, in Chinese religion, one of the Baxian, the Eight Immortals of Daoism. He is a wine-drinking recluse in quest of immortality and often depicted as a potbellied, bearded old man holding a fan with a tassel of horse hairs. Occasionally he is depicted as a military man and is credited with unusual knowledge of alchemy. His primacy among the Eight Immortals is challenged by a tradition that makes him an ascetic convert of Li Tieguai, another Immortal (xian). An alternate name, Han Zhongli, indicates that he probably lived during the Han dynasty (206 bce– 220 ce).

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heterogeneous group of holy Daoists, each of whom earned the right to immortality and had free access to the Peach Festival of Xiwangmu, Queen Mother of the West. Though unacquainted in real life, the eight are frequently depicted as a group—bearing gifts, for instance, to Shouxing, god of...